


Family, not by Blood but by Heart

by SifaShep



Series: The Quarian and the Infiltrator [9]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Post-Reaper War, Rannoch, remy shepard x tali'zorah vas normandy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5168756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SifaShep/pseuds/SifaShep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For N7 Day. Jona and Maddy were introduced in the Epilogue of Red Skies, Remy Shepard’s Origin Story on Mindoir. Remy and Tali’s kids are also in Behind the Mask, 30+ years after the Reaper War. (Both stories are here on AO3).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family, not by Blood but by Heart

Honestly, he hadn’t considered having a family. Not since Mindoir.

His career wasn’t exactly family-friendly, especially during the Reaper War. Death came at the most unexpected (and most tragic) manner. After all, he’d already died once. Cerberus had brought him back, but with ‘strings attached’, as he’d told Joker.

Sometimes, though, he’d stare out the viewport in the Captain’s Quarters. The thought rose up now and then, but he firmly squashed it before it started. He wasn’t sure just  _what_  kind of modifications they’d stuck him with. Were children even a possibility, as bad as his injuries had been? 

He’d been too embarrassed to ask Miranda, and damned if he was going to ask Doctor Chakwas. Chakwas was old enough to be his  _mother_ , and Madeline Charbonneau-Shepard hadn’t been shy about telling her son about the facts of life.

Of course, Chakwas went over the results of his physical and told him anyway.

“It seems that Cerberus solved some of your lingering problems. They’ve regenerated your left hip bone, took care of some scarring. Everything else is in excellent working order, right down to the plumbing.”

He spit out the water he’d just sipped from a cup. Chakwas apologized and handed him a towel, but the smirk on her face belied her sincerity.

“Are you all right, Commander?”

“Fine, just fine,” he spluttered. “Just…an interesting choice of words, Doctor.”

“I thought you’d want to know. It’d be one less thing to worry about.”

“Uh, thanks. I think.”

Then he stumbled into the love of his life. He considered Tali like the little sister he never had. She understood him when he slipped into technical talk, she teased him about omni-tool brands, she comforted him when Kaidan died on Virmire. She became a friend, then more than a friend. 

Tali came to his quarters the night before their assault on the Collector base. Then again on the night before they retook Earth.

_“Will you stay here? With me? Until the call comes?”  
_

_“For as long as you need me.”_

Friend, confidante, then lover and soulmate, Then wife.

He knew that he and Tali could never have children on their own. Their physiology was too different, their genetics incompatible. But that didn’t rule out adoption, especially with so many children orphaned by the Reaper war.

Oddly enough, it was Kal’Reegar who helped place Jona. Reegar knew both of little Jona’s parents; the mother had died along with Tali’s father on the Alarei, the father died on the Homeworld as part of Admiral Koris’s crew. Reegar assured them that the placement was only temporary.

“He’s only two years old, Tali, and with all the reconstruction taking place on the Homeworld…he needs someone to care for him for a while. I would, but I’ve been assigned on security duties and…can you do it?”

Tali glanced at Shepard, her large, luminous eyes silently pleading. There was simply no question as to his answer. He nodded.

“We’ll take him, Kal,” Tali answered. She held out her arms and Reegar placed the child within them. Jona stared at her for a moment, then immediately buried his helmeted face into her shoulder.

Reegar gave Shepard a knowing look. “She’s a natural, Commander. You’re so damn lucky.”

Jona adopted them and never let them go. Eventually, Shepard petitioned the Quarian Council for permanent placement.

Maddie joined their little family when Jona was six. Like Shepard, she was a Colonist, a survivor of the war. Unlike Jona, she was already eight years old by the time she’d found a home. Maddie was old enough to remember the Reaper attack, old enough to remember losing her parents. 

She latched on to Shepard like a limpet. Whenever she had nightmares, it was Shepard who held and comforted her. They bonded over shared experiences, a broken past. It had taken  _years_  before  _his_ nightmares of Mindoir and Akuze stopped.

He was determined to make the future brighter for her.

There had been some bumps along the way, like any adventure into parenthood. Tali was a definitely a godsend, a protective mother and a leader of her people in her own right. She didn’t hesitate to tell her husband or her children when enough was enough.

“Maddie is just like you. She fell asleep during her first viewing of ‘Fleet and Flotilla’ too.”

“I didn’t mean it! I was tired at the time!”

“But that was  _before_  we got into any strenuous activity!”

“You and I must remember that night differently, then.”

Tali’s head shot up as she stared at him for a moment. Then she broke out into giggles at the expression on his face. Fifteen-year-old Maddie wore a scandalized look that screamed, “DAD! YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

Thirteen-year-old Jona just sighed and shook his head. But Shepard caught his son’s smile.

There were nights when Shepard stood on the cliff overlooking the ocean, as the sun went down over Rannoch. Tali and Maddie discussing ‘stuff that dads and brothers aren’t privy’ and Jona poring over the latest scientific discoveries from Aunt Liara. Their voices floated behind him on the night wind.

He chuckled to himself. It wasn’t the most perfect family, but it was  _his_.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my headcanons: Remy had a hip replacement (left) after being found on Mindoir after Red Skies. It was that or lose his entire leg after being hit by shrapnel. Cerberus later 'fixed' it during his reconstruction in ME2.


End file.
